By Dean Murray via SWNS
Shake it off! Taylor Swift caused a seismic event at her Los Angeles show, a new study confirms.
Following a so-called Swift Quake at a Seattle concert in July 2023, a scientific team was asked by the California Office of Emergency Services to measure the pop icon’s 5 August SoFi Stadium appearance.
In a new study in Seismological Research Letters, a research team led by Gabrielle Tepp of Caltech showed how they were able to identify the seismic signature of individual songs and determine the strength of each tune’s tremor.
Tepp’s colleagues set up strong motion sensors at SoFi Stadium, analyzing data collected by those devices along with data from nearby permanent regional seismic network stations.
Previous research shows that “concert tremor” can be recorded as long-duration signals with narrowband, harmonic frequency peaks between 1 and 10 hertz. This kind of low-frequency signal looks like the harmonic tremor recorded from natural sources like volcanoes and human sources like trains.
Analysis of the seismic activity during each song performed showed that the 70,000 fans created the strongest tremor during Shake It Off, coming in at the largest local magnitude of 0.851.
The researchers found that it was likely the dancing and jumping motions of the audience at SoFi Stadium – not the musical beats or reverberations of the sound system – that generated the concert’s distinct harmonic tremors.
Gabrielle Tepp says: “Keep in mind this energy was released over a few minutes compared to a second for an earthquake of that size. Based on the maximum strength of shaking, the strongest tremor was equivalent to a magnitude -2 earthquake.
“Earthquakes below magnitude 0 can be detected and are sometimes called “micro earthquakes”. Last year, our regional seismic network in Southern California reported about 50 earthquakes with magnitudes below 0.”
The team compared the results to other musical acts at SoFi Stadium, which showed that Swift’s seismic results were stronger than Metallica’s.
Tepp says: “Other concerts had nice straight-line harmonic signals, but the signals from the Metallica concert were slanted and kind of weird looking. We don’t have a great explanation for that yet.
One explanation might be found in the fact that the beat rate for Swift’s songs doesn’t vary much between live and album performances, but Metallica’s beat rates “are all over the map,” Tepp noted.
Videos of the concerts also highlight differences between Swift’s highly choreographed shows and Metallica’s members wandering the stage.
Tepp says: “The tremor signals themselves are likely coming from the audience, but if the band is varying the beat or speed of songs as they go, maybe the audience is reacting differently.”
Metallica also “had the weakest signals in terms of the strongest magnitude from each concert,” Tepp says, adding: “Metal fans like to headbang a lot, so they’re not necessarily bouncing. It might just be that the ways in which they move don’t create as strong of a signal.”
TOP FIVE TAYLOR SWIFT ENERGY-RELEASING SONGS AT SoFi STADIUM CONCERT
Shake It OffYou Belong With MeLove StoryCruel Summer22
